


They Say It's The Take And Give

by orphan_account



Series: A Basketful of First-Times [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Accidental Plot, Accidental Stimulation, Breaking Celibacy Vows, Cold Weather, Complicated Relationships, Emotionally Repressed, Fictional Religion & Theology, First Time, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Fluff without Plot, Jedi Code (Star Wars), M/M, Making Love, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Non-Penetrative Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Sharing Body Heat, Survival Training, Tags Are Hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 00:14:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21578113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Ten years ago, on a lifeless world of snow and ice, Obi-Wan failed a test put to him by his Master. Now, much wiser in the living Force, he's compelled to try again.But the test isn't for him, this time--for Qui-Gon is much wiser now (and more the fool) in love.Or: "They say it’s the take and give,but emptiness knows just where I live,and emptiness knows me.Was it just chemicals in my head?Tell me . . . how my hands can’t seem to find your hands in the dark?Tell me, tell me how the hell did we get all the way up here?How gravity’s gone?"
Relationships: Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Series: A Basketful of First-Times [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1876582
Comments: 5
Kudos: 70
Collections: Master Apprentice Archive





	They Say It's The Take And Give

**Author's Note:**

> Has anyone seen my plot?
> 
> Otherwise: I live in Wisconsin, and waiting 40 minutes for the bus in winter here (hooray for poorly-coordinated transfers!) will give you the patience of a Jedi.
> 
> And a fic idea. Heh.
> 
> Title and "Or" are from Gregory Alan Isakov's ["Chemicals"](https://gregoryalanisakov.com/songs/chemicals).
> 
> Comments and thoughts are ever and always appreciated! Thank you so much for reading, and I do hope you enjoy. <3

He remembers the feel of the scouring wind as it hissed across the sea of ice—and the clarion sky, ever-dark, dazzled with what seemed like each of the galaxy’s stars. He remembers, too, the uncanny silence that seemed to hang always at the edge of his perception: the savage stillness: the _otherness_ : the knowledge that his and Qui-Gon’s lives were all the life upon this world. Strangers, interlopers, drawn nevertheless by the will of the Force to this place—this frigid nexus of Light—although here there are no crystals which sing themselves into blades, as on Ilum. No. Here there is nothing but the cold and the snow and the ice and the darkness, unbroken: darkness always without day.

He remembers these as if they are from a dream. They seemed so different to him, then: fifteen: hungry to prove himself—to himself as much as his Master. He had grasped for the living Force and battled wind and snow and ice—

And failed.

He almost laughs now.

No wonder he had failed.

Ten years ago that was, and now he sits and has sat for two days and two nights: more than long enough to wrest most beings’ lives away. But not so: not now: now he has wrapped himself in the living Light and the warmth and willed blood through veins and staved off frostbite, hypothermia, not through will or force—but _Force_ —but love and secrets, whispered: truths: and so the snow and the ice and the wind have become his friends.

He breathes, slowly, still as a statute, naked, snow-clad, and tilts his head up, bright-eyed, and his lips part in a smile, and he feels as if he drinks the stars.

* * *

The shuttle feels abysmally small, although it’s a piece of artistry and luxury on loan from the newly-appointed Ambassador to the Republic from some wealthy, cloistered world—and therefore far larger than anything Qui-Gon would have chosen himself if given half the chance. It feels wrong, in its way, bringing a shuttle such as this to a desolate planet, a place of testing—a place of Light and death—but the Ambassador had insisted . . . And this world of ice and ever-fallen night had already been in the shuttle’s navicomputer.

As if the Force had willed it.

The notion, then, had quirked Qui-Gon’s lips into a smile—but now it sets his jaw and he can do little but lament that he didn’t listen to his own reason.

Obi-Wan had all but insisted in coming here, himself, and Qui-Gon had sensed his yearning to return to this place. Not, perhaps, that he wished to try again the test he’d failed at age fifteen solely for the sake of pride—the young man wasn’t so petty—but something else . . . elusive . . . There was—there _is_ —something else indeed which drew his Padawan here, which had driven him, two days ago, into the lifeless plains of ice, his braid and robes whipping in the gale as he vanished from the shuttle’s lights.

Now the large shuttle feels small and the planet _immense_ and the silence—

Oh—

For once, if ever, Qui-Gon cannot abide the silence.

He has tentatively reached for the bond, slipped along the distance, caught the thread of Light and followed it—humming, resonating with Obi-Wan’s energy—his song—his vitality. The silence thus far has not been ultimate, has not been the thread snapped and life snipped and spirit slipped from flesh. The shock of that, he knows, would drop him to his knees—would be more than he could bear—

A shudder wracks him, his feet carrying him—prowling-mountain of a man—through the shuttle once again. A futile circuit, nothing more—

Out, then.

Out into the wind, the darkness, the ice and the snow, following his Padawan’s long-devoured tracks.

* * *

_< What were you _thinking _? >_

Obi-Wan blinks slowly, the world coalescing from brightness and warmth-without-heat into a star-scattered obsidian sky and _cold_. Only now does he become aware of his embodied nakedness: the snow a biting shroud, the wind that all but freezes his eyelashes to his cheeks. The shadow-memory of his tunic and trousers, folded at his side . . . his robe . . . his boots. His lightsaber . . . long-buried now . . .

And there, beyond sight, little more than shadow in the starlight—Qui-Gon at his side, glowrod clutched in one massive hand, crouched down, blue-lipped and shivering and fiercely _bright_ within the Force. More than angry—frightened—

_< Master—>_

_< The trial was only ever for a _night _. > _Qui-Gon fumbles through the drifted snow, gathering Obi-Wan’s belongings in one arm before slipping the other about his Padawan’s ribs, hoisting him to his feet. _< And never without your . . . _Look _at you! What were you_ thinking _? >_

Obi-Wan bows his head in silent bemusement to his Master’s will, allowing himself to be half-wrapped in Qui-Gon’s robe—even though he knows he’s not the one who needs it. A smile lingers at his lips, the taste of stars still fresh—before a wave of dizziness breaks over him, unbidden, sharp and brief and darker than the darkness—brighter than the Force—

He is so tired . . . and yet . . .

Qui-Gon guides him for a step and he stumbles—not for bitten feet, ah, no—his footprints melt the snow—but only for his weariness—and yet beside him his Master is as cold as ice, and the realization shakes him to himself.

Obi-Wan’s kindled strength and offering outheld _— <Master, let me help you—please—>_—cupped in his hands the living Force—the spark of life even here, the two of them, their wills against this world. But Qui-Gon shakes his head, almost imperceptibly.

Wordlessly they stagger through the darkness then, their faces towards the gale: back to the shuttle and its sheltered light.

* * *

Qui-Gon is cold, colder than he's ever been.

The shaking won’t stop and he clings to Obi-Wan as if somehow to still it and only when wrapped in radiated heat does he realize just how foolish _he_ was—even as he’d chastised his own Padawan for foolishness.

The shuttle had welcomed them and they’d found themselves in one of the sumptuous bunks, naked for necessity, naked because both know this is how one shares his body heat—naked and shaking—ah—

The shaking won’t stop.

He feels Obi-Wan instinctively wrap his arms about him, pressing their chests together, flush, his breath warm and the pulse slow in his veins, as if he’s still tranced—but somehow he’s the more self-aware of them . . . Qui-Gon curls his hands into fists and slips them into one of the divots there between them—the fragile-jagged mirror cast between their forms—feeling the staccato of his Padawan’s heart, the answering echo of his own. He feels—shyly, almost—a foot glance against his own—as if by touch alone Obi-Wan can sense frostbitten—or merely frigid—toes.

A shift, then, and Qui-Gon opens his eyes, and that gentle breath wafts across his cheeks, and he nearly loses himself to a cerulean gaze: intent, intense: unquestioning.

Touch trickled tenderly down along his nose . . . touch sending thrall through him, sharp, heat, slicing through the cold at last, as if he, like ice, will crack and shatter.

Agile fingers knead at flesh—muscles locked and shivering—coaxing warmth and blood through river-veins. Qui-Gon shuts his eyes again, feeling the wellspring of the Force—not for his own reaching, ah, but through his Padawan—his touch, his energy, his life—singing, singing, softly, without end.

He is in no danger.

Ah. Qui-Gon almost laughs.

He never was.

* * *

Weariness bears Obi-Wan as a current to the pool of Light: he bathes and pours handful after handful of warm-water-Light over his Master’s head, bears it in his very veins, his flesh and blood and bones, the heat radiating from his skin, suffusing him. His offering.

There is much more he wishes he could give.

That he could explain why the Force impelled him back to this world, to face the test he’d failed—and to surmount the trial not merely on its own, to meditate through a night and greet the dawn both hale and whole—but this—but shrouded in the living Force alone—the friend of snow and ice and darkness—naked in the snow and ice and darkness—

Had he not implored his Master wait? Three days. He would return.

A smile twitches at his lips, the memory of Qui-Gon’s face by the feeble keening of a glowrod in the storm, and he tightens his grip on his Master, letting his warmth seep into the form that’s slowly, slowly, wakening, the shaking shifting until it is a whisper only.

_< Master.>_

How can he say that he knows his Master did just this, himself?—but that Dooku would have left him to the elements? Would _never_ have come looking?

Ah.

Perhaps that is why Qui-Gon was so angry—he sees in Obi-Wan his youth—

_< No.>_

A rasped word, sharper than the wind-snared teeth and soft as melting snow.

_< No. I thought I’d lost you.>_

* * *

They lie tangled in silence for indefinite time, the shuttle thrumming quietly around them: mechanical counterpoint to the ebb and flow of their breath, the blood in their veins, the timpani-struck tempo of their hearts that at last finds tranquil measure.

Perhaps, too, they slip from fleeting sleep to consciousness. They do not know. The planet will turn and it will be night, always. Soon enough they will regather strength and take their leave to travel back to worlds with closer suns.

But not yet. Not now.

And so they lie there, tangled, warm, oblivious. For so, so brief a moment, oblivious to all but this, but the feeling of each cradled in the other’s arms—long past decorum. Ah. This has nothing, now, to do with flesh and blood and life—

And everything to do with it.

There are many things each wishes he could say. Heart-truths. Truths that cannot be borne even on the river of the Force—or such is the Code that binds them—

And so they do not speak.

And then thawed-quickened blood thrums _life_ and however faintly they catch strains of the shared song secret-sung between them—that hidden truth beyond mere flesh, beyond shared heat and tangled limbs and stiffened cocks—although, for the briefest of moments, each sinks to sacrilege and considers it no more than autonomic reflex. They are, after all, forbidden love and celibate; Qui-Gon has known no more than his own hand and well enough does he have his doubts that Obi-Wan knows himself as much. How concentrated, then, how novel, how new and alluring and tantalizing and _aching_ , then, this closeness?

Of course their bodies would react.

Not for long, though, do they mire themselves in this nonsense, for cold has a way of stripping away everything but that which is essential. And yes—the cold, the scouring gale, the snow and ice, would all have welcomed them with open arms and ushered them into darkness far greater than the endless night and never let them go.

Now, though, aching cocks and beating blood and hands that shake (not with the cold now, ah, not so) and warmth and Light—eyes meet, slowly, sidelong—a fluttering of lashes that had been frozen to their cheeks—

_< I thought I’d lost you.>_

_< But here I am.>_

This is the sum of both their lives, they know, a sum added to a running tally yet that smears and blurs and becomes a record not of sum itself, but sacrifice: this moment in each other’s arms—and life and death and loss—and letting go.

* * *

He doesn’t know what to do. Neither of them does.

Qui-Gon closes his eyes and reaches for the bond, for reassurance, in vain for something to hold onto because this—this is wild and beautiful and terrible. His right hand twitches; he clenches it into a fist; stroking himself means sharing nothing. But he doesn’t know what else to give.

He can feel the rhythm of his Padawan’s breathing shift—short, sharp exhalations—can see bright distance in his eyes, not unlike a trance: something close to shattering. His mind flickers back to all the nights he heard the young man cry out in his sleep, the mornings that found Obi-Wan uncharacteristically up before the dawn, stealing through the darkness, shamed, to wash himself. He remembers, too, his own dreams and the faint few times he’d given himself to the pleasure—silent agony—

What good is silence now?

A flare through the bond, tangible as touch, and he gasps and grasps at Obi-Wan’s hands as if the kindled need is sacred feast to starving spirits—ah—perhaps it is—perhaps—this one flawed fragile moment in time will be enough to sustain them for the rest of their lives—

Perhaps it will be worth it, for every haunting dream to come: the echoes of what they can never know again.

The impetus spurs him; he feels his muscles clench, his cock twitching, close and _close_ and Force it’s been so long and he’d never thought—

He bows his head, groaning—long past silence, now—shifting, searching, seeking friction, anything at all, against the smaller man’s frame: soft, subtle movements, still, the practiced motions of a man given to this act (if only with himself) in secret—

A glance at Obi-Wan’s face gives him upturned lips, half-parted, cerulean eyes gleaming, wondrous, taut. A brush of the mind gives joy, uncertainty, the Light, all quivering—ah— He feels, in the quiet grinding of their cocks, precum beading, dripping down his Padawan’s—though still Obi-Wan doesn’t move in kind—he's holding back—holding back for the same reasons as drove him here, to this desolate place, again to test himself, naked in the snow—

_< Obi-Wan—>_

* * *

The name—his name—the large familiar hands curled about his own—the press of his Master’s massive body—oh, the curve and velvet hardness of his cock—the slow-rocking undulation of Qui-Gon’s hips and the whimpers (such soft, soft sound from such a mountain of a man) that he knows are but a breath away from breaking into cries—

_< Master.>_

He feels half-caught still in the trance, half within himself, without—pure energy funneled through such a paltry thing as flesh and the flesh can only bear so much and oh, and oh, it almost hurts, he’s wanted this so badly—but never dared to touch himself—no—what mockery would it have been, when all he’d wanted was his Master’s closeness thus—

Qui-Gon shifts again and Obi-Wan’s hips buck at last into the touch—he is courseless, now, on the river of the Force—and instinctively he steels himself—but there, then, but there the press of his Master’s hands, the warmth of his breath: the absence of a kiss bearing all the hopes and wishes for it—ah—

They break their vows tonight but only just. They are not lovers. They can never be . . .

_< Obi-Wan. Feel this. Here I am. Embrace it. Hold it. Don’t think. Feel . . . >_

_< I don’t—I don’t know what to do—oh—please—Master—please—I need—>_

_< Shhh. Just feel. Share this with me, Obi-Wan.>_

Qui-Gon strokes his cheek with one finger before rocking his hips again, dragging his cock against Obi-Wan’s thigh and up to nestle at his hip—a shuddering motion that catches a shout, sharp, _needing_ , at his Master’s lips and he can sense how much it takes, then, for the older man to keep himself from thrusting once, twice, again, to keep himself from orgasm, to bring himself instead to stillness when it would take so very little—

Stillness.

And Obi-Wan can’t abide the stillness anymore.

He wants to kiss Qui-Gon on the lips and taste him and breathe his breath and lay his head just _there_ , just beneath his chin, and hold him close and trail kisses downwards, swirled-stiff nipples and down and to place a kiss there at the head of his cock—to trail his touch there along its slickened length—he knows it would fit in the valley of his palm more completely than even the hilt of his lightsaber—to feel the raw surging power of each thrust and—

But he won’t.

But they can’t.

Convulsively he swallows, feeling his cock beat with his own frenetic pulse, the cadence caught in his hands—the quiet tightening of Qui-Gon’s grip, the subtle intertwining fingers, the rasp of calloused fingers—stroking—

And the trail of precum left along his thigh and that his Master didn’t cum but to share as much, at least, with him. He smells now, too, the warmth of their bodies, the sweat, the musk—and it’s thick and rich and _life_ and they outshine the stars, the two of them: the bright-crackling stars that he had only so recently tilted back his head to drink. They were bittersweet and this is sweetly bitter and he must taste both.

Qui-Gon tasted the stars and held their secret for so long and now, now he knows this test as well. Perhaps it is a blessing to taste them both so quickly . . . like medicine . . . or pain . . . But this is bright and if it burns, it’s good.

Tentatively he shimmies closer yet, half-slipping one leg about his Master’s thigh. How close is too close? How close breaks the seal twixt this and a lover’s act—or have they broken it and will they say no more? How much give is there within the Code?

He doesn’t know.

The shifting becomes finding there a niche at Qui-Gon’s groin and the feather-light press of their cocks and he starts to shake and he can’t—oh—he feels his Master’s hips rock to meet his own—frantic, now—sharp-soft cries at Qui-Gon’s lips—

The young man’s name then, too, flung across the bond, over and over—but not by syllable or sound—the _essence_ of him—energy calling to energy, light to light—

He can’t—this is more than he can bear—

Obi-Wan bows his head, half-sobbing, tangled words at his lips that are far more precious than words for the desperation that scatters them. He feels Qui-Gon’s body seize and hot spurts of cum jet against his hip and hears at last the broken lovecry of his Master that his mind has only half-given him in furtive dreams—

He lets go of Qui-Gon’s hands and wraps his arms around broad shoulders and buries his head beneath his Master’s chin and grinds his cock against the larger man with stumbling abandon, closercloser _closer_ , no closeness between them is enough, words be damned, the Force wills this, he knows, it binds them still, will always— _always_ —

For the first time in his conscious life, cradled in his Master’s arms, he cums—and what falls from his lips as shout and soft after-whisperings amidst wordless-broken moans is not an honorific, but a name.

**Author's Note:**

> By-the-by . . .
> 
> My utmost gratitude to everyone who has kept reading these silly little fics of mine despite the fact that there's never any penetrative sex--even though that seems to be the be-all / end-all staple of most erotica (straight, gay, or otherwise). 
> 
> I'm a gay man who doesn't enjoy penetrative sex, so I really wanted to make a point of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon making love in other ways throughout my works.
> 
> So. Uhm. Thanks to all who've stuck around. <3
> 
> **(Still and forever and always taking first-time prompts, by the way. Sling 'em at me if you like! <3)**


End file.
